Talen
by HeCallsMeHisChild
Summary: You think you know why I did what I did, to Ariel. To Triton. To all of them. But you don't know. Nobody does. In the moment between life and death, it all replays, and you will know the truth.
1. A Teacher's Voice

**Note: **Those of you who know my writing style know that this is probably my longest chapter to date, running a little over 3000 words. I meant it to be a oneshot, but it was impossible. As it is, this chapter covers one half of the story, and the next will cover the rest.

I live in a moment where a lifetime passes by. Amid the slashing pain thrust between my ribs, I see it all in a moment. And I weep.

It was always merpeople that ruled the seas. Most of them were not even aware of the fact. They just flipped their tails and swam their merry way through clean, clear waters and the sparkling currents of Atlantis. Their children casually plucked anemones for their hair or exchanged shells gathered from the ground, giggling with delight.

I would watch them from the shadows. I was small enough then to hide in the shadows. My arms were thin as twigs, and my tentacles barely held me up. I watched families lay out picnics on the sands of the ocean floor and gorge themselves until they lay back, patting their rounded bellies in satisfaction. My own bloated with hunger, I clutched it, begging the pain to stop. When I could bear it no more, I turned and slipped off through the cracks and shadows to the murky waters of the cave-riddled depths, where my sister and mother waited.

We lived off of the scraps and refuse left behind, the leftovers of the lavish palace feasts when we were lucky. Ours was a kind not even granted the dignity of a name by the merpeople. They would name the crab, the oyster, and the bottom-feeder before they would name us. On seeing us, they would say, "It's one of those things," before turning away in disgust.

I remember the day I met a merperson for the first time. It was a young boy, following a lionfish and tweaking its fins. I watched him, curious. Didn't he know the poison that ran in a lionfish's fins? He laughed, tugging and twisting on them as the fist flicked its fins irritably. The boy's laughter slowed, and I could see faint trails of red around his hands. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of something. His swimming pattern faltered, and he started to drop lower. He drifted to the bottom, raising a small cloud of mud, and curled up, shivering and hugging his tail like a newborn.

Cautiously, I drifted toward him. His eyes were screwed shut, probably from the nausea. It would pass within the hour, but given the way he'd been playing with the fish he probably didn't know that. Glancing around, I checked to see if anyone was watching. No one was, so I pulled the boy into one of our caves, and laid him out on a rock shelf.

For the next hour I watched over him as he moaned, shivered, and cried. I studied the smooth scales of his tail and the supple fins sprouting from the end, so different from my own rubbery, suckered tentacles. I could not count his ribs as I could my own, nor could I make out his collarbone, but I was sure he had one.

When he finally opened his eyes, he looked straight at me. His mouth curled fearfully as he said, "Oh you're one of those things… are you going to eat me?"

I wanted to strike him, but I didn't have the strength. Instead, I said simply, "No, you were sick. I let you rest in my cave."

"I don't get sick, I never get sick." The boy boasted.

"You did and you will again if you play with lionfish," I returned.

"What do you know about fish? You're just a thing. I'm gonna be king someday." He grinned.

In spite of myself, I laughed. "You're the prince? Yeah right."

"I am!" He said defensively. "I just don't have my crown right now."

"A prince wouldn't be swimming out here, he would stay in Atlantis."

"I'm bored in Atlantis," he whined. "I know every current and cove there, I wanted to find a new place. Besides, nobody plays with me there." He lit up. "Will you play with me?"

"Me? Play with you?" I sank a little. What little energy I had was giving out. I needed to rest, my vision was spinning. "I don't play. I watch people play."

"Please?" He begged. "It's just me in the castle and I'm tired of being alone. I'll bring you home with me, and you can be my pet."

I felt something then, stirring in the pit of my stomach that wasn't hunger. "Your pet?"

"Yeah, I'll take care of you and feed you and make sure you're clean."

I opened my mouth to tell him I would eat him right then and there if he didn't leave, when I heard it. He would feed me. I cannot express to you, if you have never felt starvation, what it reduces you to. When you are beyond hunger, when you are beyond want and your every moment is haunted by a dull throbbing in your stomach that spreads to every corner of your body in a constant symphony of need, perhaps you will understand. But until then, believe the word of an old witch when I say that when you starve, the first thing to die is your pride.

I was dragged to the palace by my arm so fast I thought my bones would snap. Everywhere I looked I saw flashes of gold, schools of fish, and a mass of horrified faces. I began to wonder, had I really fallen in with the prince? The way the merpeople fled out of his way as he careened toward the citadel began to melt my doubt.

When he pulled me into the palace and the guards parted for him, I knew he had been telling the truth.

He led me into the banquet hall, and loudly announced to his parents that he'd found a pet. I think I heard one or two fins swishing as all talk ceased, and every eye fixed on me. I ducked my head, mortified. I had never been seen by so many eyes before, and it made me horribly aware of myself, of my stripling tentacles and my violet skin, my bony frame and my foam-white hair. Every part of me screamed "Other" and "Strange" to these gods of the sea, and I knew it.

His father, Neptune, chuckled as his mother shot a worried glance at him. He saw nothing wrong with it, he said. The boy needed a companion, why shouldn't he have a pet? Again, I felt my insides recoil at the word, but my traitorous eyes took in the food. So much food. And my lips lay silent.

His name was Triton, he said, named for the weapon he would one day inherit to rule the seas. My name would be Ursula, because he liked the sound of it, he said. He sat me down and put food on my plate. For a moment, I stared at it, not sure that it was really there, and if it was, that it was really for me. Then the smell hit me and I could not contain myself. I was devouring it, mouthful after mouthful, fist over fist, more and more.

I had my own little shelf in his room to sleep on. It was padded, and swaddled with warm spongesheets. He slept in his own royal oyster shell, but I didn't mind. My shelf was warm and soft, nicer than anything I had ever slept on. Every day he would wake me and bring me to classes with him. I was to sit in the corner and keep my hands to myself, so I did. I sat and watched and listened. Triton was a nightmare to the teacher, drawing seamonsters in the books, making faces behind his back, wriggling his squeaky seat back and forth during the lectures. I giggled at a few of his antics, but my attention was mainly on the teacher. I couldn't understand why Triton didn't want to be there, this merperson was handing him knowledge.

If Triton didn't want it, I did. I lapped it up, storing the information away in my mind. I didn't understand all of it, but it didn't matter. Even the parts I didn't understand I stored away, to be examined later and pulled apart for answers.

I spent so long in that room, I forgot that I was supposed to keep myself to myself, and one day I found myself answering a question the teacher had put to Triton. The teacher stared at me, as if I were a slug that had suddenly sprouted gills and fins. I shrank back, mortified that I had forgotten my place, but the teacher merely turned back to Triton and continued the lesson. The next day, however, a second seat had been pulled out, and a book brought out for me. From that day forward, I was a part of the now two-person class.

If I had lapped up information from this teacher before, I drank it in great, unending draughts once I learned to read. And when I found the royal library, it was my second great delight. The books on magic, especially, drew me, and I pored over every volume on it I could find. Occasionally, when no one was looking, I attempted it. My first time I attempted to conjure up a plate of kelp for myself, and ended up with a dancing shrimp. I laughed, delighted, until I looked down, and found the book in my hands had vanished. I searched for it everywhere, but was unable to find it. I learned the first rule of magic that day, that any spell always came at a cost, whether small or great.

My first great delight, of course, was the food. And it was as unending as the knowledge there. I was fed three times a day as much as I could eat, and I ate as much as I could. I vowed I would never go hungry again. I watched as my form filled out, and began pooling around me, and I was pleased. I squished when I swam and sat and lay down, and I was thrilled. I couldn't see my ribs anymore, they were hidden under folds of skin and fat, lovely wonderful fat that kept me warm and let me know that no, I was not going to fade away into nothing one day, or die in my sleep with my belly clawing at my spine. I was going to live, and live well.

Life was not completely wonderful. Triton still referred to me as his pet, and kept me as such. I could not leave the palace without him, I could not play without him, and I was expected to sit quietly and read or sleep when he went out without me. Like a good pet, he explained, without really explaining anything.

Neptune treated me as even less. If I ever got too close to him, he would send me flying head over tentacles with a flip of his powerful tail. If I ever spoke in his presence, he would sternly tell Triton to contain his pet. His mother, I think, looked on me as one looks on a wounded animal by the side of the road. With pity, but with a certain amount of disgust she could not hide.

Years passed as such. My tentacles spread and my form filled out more, to the point where I began to sleep on the floor so as not to break my creaking shelf. I did not care, I was beginning to lose the fear that I would revert back to the skinny starveling I had been. She was hidden deep within folds of fat, drowning, never to return. Triton's form grew too, but differently. Where I grew out, he grew up. He learned how to wield weapons, and race the giant seahorses, and control the flow of magic through the triton he would one day claim with his ascendancy to the throne.

One evening I lay in my spongesheets, I heard Triton enter the room as he always did. I heard the swish of his tail and the motion of his body, but it didn't stop at his bed as it always did.

I felt arms shaking me. I looked up, and saw a strange expression on his face. He looked down at me and said that he wanted to try something. Something he had been just taught about in a private lesson by his teacher. I was tired, and said so. I didn't want to do anything. He planted his hands on his fists, still such a child, and said that as his pet I had to do what he wanted or I wouldn't be fed. My chest tied itself in a cold knot. I had to be fed, I couldn't go back to what I was before, I would die having known this security. So I rose from my spongesheets and waited as he explained, in halting words, what exactly he was going to do.

I had never heard of such a thing. It was strange and bizarre, and a part of me screamed no, I would not. But that part was buried deep under warm layers of indulgence and gluttony that demanded sustenance, continuance of the life I had become accustomed to. And so, I submitted.

From that night on, at least twice a week, the future king practiced his newfound knowledge on me, his pet. Every time it passed left me a little more empty inside, like my insides had been scooped out and sent to the refuse piles. I did not understand it, so I filled it with more food.

I did not notice the changes for a long time. How could I, with my body growing greater every day anyway? I noticed I felt ill some days, and other days I could barely rise from my sheets. I felt sluggish and heavier in a way that I could not explain. When this continued for a few weeks, I sought out our teacher.

I spoke to him of how I had felt, and he asked if anything had happened recently that had made it so. Had I been kicked by Triton's seahorses, had I forgone food for a long time—he laughed at the thought—or had I merely overexerted myself. I mentioned what Triton had done, and the teacher's skin faded to pearl-white. He asked me to describe in more detail exactly what Triton had done, and I did so. His face frightened me badly.

I might be with child, he said, while he could not be sure it was a possibility and must be dealt with. Dealt with, I asked, what did he mean? Removed, he said, removed from my body and disposed of. Such a child was an abomination, a cross that should never happen.

As I heard these words, the small part of me that I had locked away screamed to life. If it had been just me, I would have done anything and given anything to keep things the way that they were. But if there was even a small possibility that a child lay cradled within my body, I would not allow it to be harmed.

Words flowed to my lips, almost unbidden, chanting a horrible curse. The teacher's eyes widened, recognizing the deep magic I was invoking. He opened his mouth to cry out when giant hands sprouted from the ground on either side of him. They were green and looked like silt drifts in the water, but held him fast. A third sprouted from the ground in front of him and reached into his mouth, plucking from his throat a glowing orb. It held it for a moment between a thumb and a forefinger, as if waiting for me to make a move or speak again. When I did not, it squeezed, shattering the orb. The strange hands vanished, leaving only bruises on the teacher's arms to mark that they had been there.

From that day forward, our teacher was mute. He left the palace shortly afterward, and I never heard of him again. At times I regret what I did, for he did whet my thirst for knowledge, but I would not have my child harmed.

I turned from my books on magic and began to read books on birthing. There were no books on my kind, so I only discovered how to birth a merchild. I prayed it would be enough when the time came.

And the time did come. When it came, I swam to an unused refuse cove in the palace, and there birthed my son in an agony of silent screaming.

He was tiny, with purple skin and white hair. He had a black merman's tail from which sprouted several tentacles at various intervals. He was the most precious thing I had ever seen. I named him Talen and I kissed his head, vowing that no one would harm him.

I kept him hidden in that abandoned refuse cove. His first toys were scraps from the kitchen and bones from the tables. I spent every second I could spare there, every second I could without arousing suspicion from Triton that is. Not that Triton paid me much attention. After a few months he had satisfied himself that he knew all that could be done with his newfound ability, and he began to ignore me. He was past the age of child's play, and I no longer had much of a purpose except to lie on the floor of his room and consume.

But I had my own purpose, and his name was Talen.

He was a sickly child from the start. He would cry and never stop. I had to learn silencing spells very quickly. They required of me some of my flesh, but I gave it to seal any passing ears from hearing his wails. When it came time to feed he would close his mouth against nourishment, allowing it to dribble over his face. By pressing his jaw I could make him open his mouth for a little while but he would only take a little, and his body rejected most of it shortly thereafter. I tried mixes of ground kelp and pearl, and he kept that down a little better.

I tried to search the books in the library for information. There had to be an answer somewhere, I could not be the first with a child only partly of the mer-race. It had to have happened before, and perhaps it would explain why my child was the abomination my teacher had proclaimed.

After a week of searching, I found it. It was nearly myth by this point, but it spoke of an octopus and a fishman having a child. It said from the start the child's body was doomed to be ravaged by conflict from within. It said that the child went mad with the double dose of magic inherited from both sides and destroyed both parents, then died in agony shortly thereafter. From that point on, the laws of the merfolk stated that no mate was to be taken outside of their race, no matter the reason, and that if such occurred, the child was to be disposed of as quickly as possible.

I refused to believe it. It would not happen, not to my Talen. He would live, he would thrive, and I would be there for him. I would find a way to counteract this strange conflict in his body, and then he would be accepted into the palace and treated well. I paused then, wondering, did I want this for him? The life of a pet of the palace? And the answer rose hot and angry within me. No. It was all well and good for me, but not him. He deserved so much more.


	2. A Mother's Love

**Note:** I'M NOT DEAD (just floating) I SWEAR. Look, here's proof I'm not dead! CHAPTER! And before you say anything, yes, I know there's a lot of repetition in this. That's the style I chose for this story. Flowing and repetitive and vaguely poetic.

I began to study two things with single minded focus. I absorbed every speck of knowledge in the royal library on magic, learning all I could about the strange hands I saw nearly every time I cast a spell. I learned that magic would conform to the personality of the user, and because mine had become one of consumption and intake, the magic to me appeared as a pair of hands that took, stole, changed things. I learned that it would take a source of magic more powerful than anything I could comprehend to change Talen's fate, to keep his body from being ravaged by its own magic. And I learned that the only nearby source of such power was the Trident, handed down through generations of Merman kings controlling the sea and all its inhabitants.

So I began studying the Trident. I learned where it was kept, when Neptune took it from its stand and when he put it back before he went to sleep. I learned the pattern of the guards roaming back and forth and around the stand. I learned everything there was to know about the Trident, except the most important thing.

Two months after Talen's birth, I decided I was ready. I would seize the Trident and give my son the chance to live. Not only that, I decided, but I would be the new ruler. And why shouldn't I be? Because I was born with tentacles instead of fins? Because my skin was purple and my kind cast aside? Not good enough. I could feel it now, the resentment. The hot, writhing resentment buried deep in my heart the very first time I was called a "pet". I'd turned away from it for so long, kept it at a distance as long as it was just me. But it was no longer just me, it was Talen too. His future was at stake, so I embraced the poison I'd kept simmering for so long. Embraced it, and let it burn hotter, preparing me that night for my destiny.

Everything worked perfectly. I watched from the shadows, cloaking myself in a spell that cost me the color of my eyes as Neptune set his Trident in its stand. The three guards stood at attention until he left, then began their patrol, swimming in a precise circle around it. As they passed around and around it, never taking their eyes off, I lay myself down on the ground and crawled forward. It was easy to crawl and roll with all my flesh, and I had kept to the ground most of my life. The guards, I had noted, swam several feet off the floor of the palace, leaving me plenty of room to wriggle underneath.

I had just passed beneath one of them, when I heard a faint mewling noise. My innards clenched as the circle of shadows halted, and the guards turned toward the disturbance. In the archway, barely inching forward, was my son. My mind raced. How had he gotten there? Was he old enough to have moved himself? I reached back in my memory, searching for clues. He had been more restless lately, been stirring his weak tentacles and tail in an effort to move. He was almost of age to begin swimming… he could have made it this far.

One of the guards broke the circle and began swimming toward Talen, drawing a sword. In that moment, I saw a choice. I could swoop up my son under the cover of my spell and hide him away, or I could seize the Trident. If I went after my son, I would reach him before the guard did, but I would lose my chance to save him from a horrible death. If I grabbed the Trident, the guard might reach my son first.

For a moment, I lay within the circle, staring up at the trident. The gold of it gleamed brilliant, almost blinding, but all I saw was my son's salvation. I stretched out my hand to take it.

When I woke, my wrists were bound behind my back and my tentacles were wound with thick strands of kelp. I lay on my back, staring up into the face of Neptune. I had never seen an expression more terrifying on the face of any creature in my entire life. Beside him, Triton hovered, staring a little to my left, a mortified and disgusted look on his face. I turned my head to see what he was looking at, and saw the most pitiful sight in my life. Talen, already barely able to crawl, had been wrapped in seaweed so tightly he could do nothing but cry. They had bound him so tightly that the strands cut his fragile skin, and blue blood stained the water.

"My son has told me everything," Neptune thundered, "How you mated with the teacher who left this place in disgrace, and birthed this abomination in secret. I cannot expect one so low as you to know the laws of our kind, so your punishment would be less had you not laid hands on the Trident. Your attempt to defile such a holy relic cannot be overlooked, and you will be executed. Only those in the royal lineage of merfolk can hold or hand over the power of the Trident, and you are of neither the lineage nor the honored species. You will be beheaded at first light. This thing, however, will be taken to the shark wastes and left there."

Soldiers' hands reached for my son, seizing him by the hair and lifting him up. I could see his neck straining, the fragile bones clinging to each other. I could barely hear Neptune handing down my punishment, because I could feel the magic and the rage rising together within me, twining to pour out of my mouth in a horrible, terrible curse.

The hands came, then, the hands that reached into the chest of that guard and pulled from him his beating heart, leaving no trace of a wound. He released Talen, floating limply. My heart surged for my son, and one of the hands reached out to catch him as he fell, carrying him gently to me. Another word from my lips dissolved the seaweed binding us both as I took him from the hand, cradling him close to my chest. The magic, satisfied with the price of the merman's heart, dissipated with the hands.

I lifted my head, eyes narrowed at Triton. For Neptune I did not even spare a glance. I held Talen up, and hissed, "Behold, Triton. Your firstborn child. Descendant of the line of Neptune, he will be a greater ruler than any of you." With that, I tucked him close to my chest and fled the palace.

I could not return to the caves of my mother and sister. That was where they would first search. I could not seek shelter with anyone, who would harbor me? So I turned to the one place they would not look for me. The Shark Wastes.

For a while, I sheltered in an abandoned shipwreck, nesting in the deepest part of the belly of the ship. That was where I found the first one. A small, cloth thing with little strands sprouting off its head. Merchildren had toys, and plenty of dolls, but this one was of human origin, with legs. Its hair must have been red once, but it had dimmed to a dingy brown, sodden with the rich saltwater. It had a funny little stitched mouth and a triangle nose with two black button eyes. It looked so friendly, lying in the corner. I scooped it up in a tentacle, inspecting it for a moment, before deciding it was a better toy than my son had ever had. I pushed it into his outstretched arms, and his fussing stilled. That night was the first time he slept without crying.

There was nothing to eat, everything in the shipwreck had been stripped, licked, gnawed and polished clean. I had ample flesh to keep myself alive, but my innards railed at the lack of food. Talen barely consumed enough of my milk to live. I had to find somewhere else.

I left Talen with his playmate twice a day for five days as I swam out, searching for a new place. I lost a tentacle to a shark, and another to the hands in payment for saving me a second time. It hurt, but it was all I had to give.

On the sixth day I found it. A series of caves riddling a reef near the southern border of the Shark Wastes. Coral and kelp and seaweed were bountiful there. I lost no time bringing Talen and his friend, and making up a small bed of sponges I plucked myself.

For a brief span, I was content. I was with my son, I was no longer a pet, and I was beyond the reach of the merfolk.

Then the sores appeared. They were small at first, but they spread like barnacles across his skin. He would scratch weakly, and he cried constantly. He stopped eating altogether, and I knew this was only the beginning. The magic was beginning to rend him.

What could I do? I had to get the Trident, but that would require planning. So much planning, and time I did not have. I could not take care of my son and claim the source of all the merpeoples' power at the same time. I glanced at the doll he kept with him constantly. "You're no help at all, you know. You could at least look after him for me."

If I could take those words back now, I would. I would forget them, and treasure what little time I had with Talen in his short life. I would saturate him every second with all the love I never had in my life up to his dying moments. Because that was the moment it struck me, the doll could look after Talen. And not just while I left for a bit, but until I returned victorious.

I set about making the cavern as comfortable as possible, lining his bed with fresh sponges and placing colorful shells on the wall for him to look at. Then I turned to the doll, and summoned the hands. Pointing at the doll, I willed for it to multiply. To populate the cave with an army of itself. I watched as the cavern filled with replicas of the doll, all laying limply about. Then I gave them purpose.

"You will not sleep, you will not rest. Your every waking moment is devoted to Talen. You will feed him, clean him, entertain him. You will ward off danger and confound any search for him. You will draw, as your source of magic, the forces tearing him apart, so that he may live."

As I spoke, the sores on my son's body closed. The magic warring inside of him began spilling into the dolls, propping them up as they struggled to their feet. The first one, the original, turned its head to me, its stitched-mouth smile suddenly eerie and frightening. Its black button eyes shone as it stepped awkwardly toward me.

"Nooooooot. E...nough."

I was startled. It could speak? Its mouth did not move, but I suppose it would have to in order to entertain Talen as I commanded, what did it mean not enough?

"Noooooooooot. E….nough."

"What do you mean?" I demanded. "What more is there?"

It stretched out a ragged cloth hand toward me, and to my horror, the silt hands turned toward me as well. I realized my error. I had not paid a price for this magic, I had not given anything for it. I had chosen a power source, my son's magic, but I had not paid for the spell.

"I have nothing!" I cried, despairing.

"You…. Haaaaaaaave…." It crooned.

The silt hands plunged into my chest, reaching deep. I wailed in terror, sure they would pull out my beating heart and leave me dead on the cavern floor. Instead, I felt something else slipping away. I turned my head toward Talen, and suddenly I did not remember why it was so important that I bring the Trident back. What was I thinking? I would never sacrifice so much to get the Trident for some worthless, helpless leech. I stared at him in contempt. How could I have ever thought him beautiful? He was disgusting, with his limp, stripling tentacles sprouting off a bony tail. The hands receded, clutching a small red orb of light. In passing, I wondered what it was they had taken from me.

The spar of the ship thrusts deeper, tearing through the gap in my soul where the love for my son once dictated my every move.

**Note: **See, not dead, and I will finish this, probably next chapter will be the last in this story.


	3. Memories

From that day forward, there was not a single thought for my son. There was an echo of something protective that sputtered weakly once, and it was for a pair of eels who had had their tails tied together. I drove off the merchildren tormenting them, and I didn't even know why. From that day on, Flotsam and Jetsam were my only companions. I gave them protection and food, and they gave me a set of eyes with which to spy on the world.

Through them, I learned of the merfolks' weaknesses. Not their collective weakness, but their individual failings, downfalls, and longings. And I knew my plan of attack.

I found, just on the borders of Atlantis, the carcass of some ancient, land-dwelling creature that had found its end on the ocean floor. Here I began amassing a collection of necessities. Herbs, books, and spells I had learned the hard way painstakingly copied down on scraps of hide. Wherever I could, I stole information. I hoarded every last drop of useless data, picking through them to find base roots of spells buried deep in the merfolk's everyday conversation. I was disgusted. This was a people saturated in magic, yet they no longer remembered how to use it themselves. If they turned their wills just a bit, they could move whole reefs with their words. But they had forgotten, and they carelessly mouthed words that could rend the ocean floor had they only known it.

My most valuable discovery, though, was in experimentation with the hands. I found that I could delay the collection of the price of magic for up to three days. After that, collection was swift and merciless. This I learned at the cost of my memories of my family. One moment they were there, and the next there were holes in my memory. I didn't even know what it was I was missing, just that there was an ache whenever I tried to recall what it was.

By sending out Flotsam and Jetsam, I learned to lure the merfolk with promises of acquiring what they desired. Most were a blur to me, faces and fins and desperate measures demanded, but the first two I remember with excruciating clarity.

The first was little more than a fishbone of a merman, barely more than a slip of skin swimming forlornly into my lair. There was a mermaid, he said haltingly, eyes darting around the dimly lit corners of the leviathan's carcass with fear, whom he loved. He wanted to woo her, to tell her how much he adored her, but she would surely never look at him, not like this. Please, he pleaded, wringing his hands, do something.

I laughed to myself. Flotsam had already visited his beloved's home and relayed to me that she loved him as well, and also thought he would never look at her. This situation was perfect. For me.

I produced for him a magical contract that allowed him three days, after which he must either produce the payment of a fresh shark's liver, or be mine forever. He barely listened, so eager was he for my services. The fool signed the contract, not even thinking about the dangers of lone shark hunting. I gave him the body of a god, and sent him on his way.

Not two hours later, his beloved came to me. She lived well, in a wealthy house, and it showed. Her form curved and billowed nearly as much as mine did. I admired her for a moment, until she opened her mouth. Then it was all I could do not to fly into a rage. She wasn't pretty, she wanted to be thin, she wanted to be little again. Did she not know what she had? Was she not grateful for the chance to have so much protection against hunger hanging around her? I seethed under my smile, I could hardly wait for three days to pass for this one.

The price I required of her was her very first toy. She laughed and signed away her life, as if she could even remember what her very first toy was. I stripped away her flesh and left her a skinny shriveling, but she crowed and said it was the most marvelous change she had ever felt. She swam out, eager to find her man.

I counted the hours as the days passed, and when they did, I sent my hands to drag the lovers to my home.

"Where is my shark's liver?" I asked the merman. He didn't have it, he quailed. How was he supposed to get one? Did I really expect he could pay such a ridiculous price? I grinned, turning to the mermaid. "Where is your first toy?" She began begging right away, claiming she had searched every corner of her house, but couldn't find it. Perhaps merely her favorite childhood toy would suffice?

The hands turned to me, awaiting my order for what to take as their price.

"Strip them," I crooned in delight, "Strip them of their beauty. Their tails. Their voices. Their very form. Root them to the throat of this beast, let them watch others come in, and be unable to warn them."

The hands became a whirlwind, winding around the helpless merfolk and transforming them into polyps. They turned their woeful, ugly faces to me, and opened their maws in soulful wails, but I merely threw back my head and laughed. They were only the first.

Year after year I reeled them in, promising wealth, beauty, love. They came, sometimes by the droves, sometimes one by one. Every now and then, one could pay the price, and I released them. I did not need them all, just most of them.

Do not think, during all this time, I did not have my eyes on the palace. I watched as Triton found his own love, and had with her many daughters. I burned as I watched, seeing him rest his favor on the youngest. What right did she have to his favor? It shouldn't have been her to have his favor! Who should have had it was a vague feeling that flitted away when I turned to it, but it didn't matter. She was undeserving, and he would pay for what he had done to me.

I enjoyed his brief sorrow when his wife died, but after that, he took solace in his many daughters. I watched the youngest carefully, Ariel she was called. Triton was the most careful, the most cautious with her, and as a result, she strained against his rules and regulations. She developed a strange obsession with the surface, and visited often. I kept Flotsam and Jetsam watching her, waiting for an opportunity, and one finally came.

The child fell in love with a human. I could not have asked for a better chance. When her father found out, he flew into a rage. Merfolk could not mate outside their kind, of course, but he did not explain this. Perhaps, I thought with a tinge of bitterness, it touched too close to home. He only thundered, "He's a human! You're a mermaid!" And destroyed her safe place.

It was there, in the wreckage of that safe place, in the aftermath of tears, that my faithful servants dangled in front of her the promise of help. My help.

And so she came.

I made, for her, a great exception. I did not set a price for her. Oh I asked for her voice, but that was in case she proved too close to reaching her goal. For her, I made a bet. If she was able to seal her love with a kiss, she would become human forever. If not, she would be mine. This, I knew, would be dangerous. If she won this gamble, it would be me paying the price. But it was worth it. I could almost feel the trident in my hands.

Watching the wench from the sea when she was on land was more difficult, but I managed. I watched as she ensnared the prince, slowly, seductively with those innocent eyes and those mournful expressions. It was revolting. When I couldn't stand to watch her any longer, I turned toward Triton. I spent hours reveling in his misery, his regret at how he had handled the situation. He sent his subjects far and wide, searching everywhere for her. I laughed. They would never find her, not in any of the seven seas. Not until it was too late.

I turned back to the child to find she had help. Her friends, the crab and the fish, were setting a romantic mood for a boat ride. I knew I was in trouble when the human began glancing uneasily at her, asking her name. I sent Flotsam and Jetsam as fast as I could, and they barely averted a catastrophe. Just as the pair were about to seal my doom with a kiss, my servants overturned their boat.

Rage coursed through my veins. How dare she even get that close? That close to wrecking all these years of work, all my watching and waiting? No. It would not end this way. I swam around my lair, hurling things into my cauldron and calling forth from the darkness within me the most alluring human image I could conceive of. "Triton's daughter will be mine. Then I'll make him writhe. I'll see him wriggle like a worm on a hook!" I crowed, as my body transformed. To the hands, I willingly gave my memories of being a skinny, starving stripling, any memory before living in the palace.

My first few steps on land were as unsteady as hers had been. I could have made it easier with magic, but I had already indebted myself enough. I spent the time necessary to walk upright, and by then it was nightfall of the second day. With her voice at my command, I walked the beach and sang her song, laced with a spell. I did not see the prince, but I did not need to. I could feel the webbing of the spell wrapping around his soul, binding it to the bearer of the voice for all eternity. To keep the hands at bay, I relinquished my memories of Triton's parents, and their treatment of me.

The human found me. He came to me, drawn by a longing he could not explain. He asked, what was my name?

"Vanessa." My eyes widened and I fell to my knees. Vanessa. I had all but forgotten. Triton had named me Ursula, had never asked my name, and I had never volunteered it. Ursula day in, day out, it was who I had become. Why did it come to me now? It did not matter. It was what had come out, and I would use it. "My name is Vanessa."

The next day, he began wedding preparations. He planned them in front of her, and I watched with satisfaction as her heart cracked and shattered into little pieces.

Safely aboard the wedding vessel, I could not help myself. Her voice was mine, this form—though lacking in the security of flesh I was used to—was alluring and powerful in its own way. I lowered my defenses and sang.

I had never had a beautiful voice before, and I reveled in it. Perhaps, I thought, I would keep it for myself when I returned, and torment Triton with it. I gazed at myself in the mirror laughing. There I was, the reflection revealed the truth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a seagull burst into flight away from the window, but thought nothing of it.

Not until the denizens of both the sky and sea disrupted the wedding did I think of the seagull that had departed from my window. Of course. I had been foolish, overconfident to forget how many allies the wench had made. The seagull attacked with ferocity the necklace in which I had stored her voice, yanking it from my neck where it shattered… at her feet.

When had she come on board? She called out to him, and the very spell with which I had ensnared him drew him from my side to hers, now the bearer of the voice. I called out to him, but my own rough voice repulsed me. They embraced, and I saw my doom approaching as they leaned toward each other.

The gods must have smiled on me for a moment, because the sun slipped below the horizon at just that moment, leaving her a helpless, stranded mermaid. I shed my seductive form and exploded out of the dress in a mass of flailing tentacles and purple flesh. I seized Ariel and dove overboard, back into the sea. My victory was nearly complete.

The girl whimpered in fear, and I scoffed at her. "Poor little princess, it's not you I'm after. I've a much bigger fish to—"

And then I heard it. Not through the conveyance of my servants' senses, but with my own ears. That voice I had not heard in decades, bellowing, "Ursula, stop!"

There it was, glowing with power in his hands. I couldn't help tracing a finger along it as I breathed, "King Triton. How are you?" I chuckled mockingly, and grinned as he winced.

"Let her go!" He blustered, digging the tip into my stomach.

I knocked it away, growling, "Not a chance, Triton, she's mine. We made a deal!" I lifted the contract as the brat began mewling, begging her father to forgive her. In his rage, he sent a surge of power through the trident at the contract. I was hurled against a nearby cave wall, but not even the pain could surpass my satisfaction at the dismay on his face when the contract didn't dissolve.

"The contract is legal!" I gloated. "Binding and completely unbreakable, even for you." I sauntered up to him. "Of course, I always was a girl with an eye for a bargain." My freedom for protection, food, shelter. My dignity for your plaything. "The daughter of the great sea-king is a very precious commodity." The contract whirled around Ariel, beginning to strip from her her form. "But I might be willing to make an exchange for someone even better."

I had won. I could see it on his face as he watched his daughter's beauty destroyed, her chances of freedom dwindling. He would do anything, anything at all.

"Do we have a deal?" I crooned, and was rewarded by his signature on my contract.

In a flash, Ariel had been restored, and the son of Neptune reduced to a polyp on the sea floor. Around him lay his crown, and beside him…

Wrapping a tentacle around what I had dreamed of and fought for for decades was the sweetest moment I could remember at the time. Because the sea-king had forfeited his freedom to me, he had also forfeited his power to hold the trident to me. I could touch it, and not be harmed by its power as before.

Hands clawed at me. The brat was enraged that I had used her. I hurled her down, ready to dispose of her, when a harpoon grazed my arm. Her lover had come for her. Well, I could fix that. Flotsam and Jetsam bound him, dragging him before me. "Say goodbye to your sweetheart," I cackled, as I pointed the trident at him. Again, she clawed at me, spoiling my aim. The beam of power shot past the human and struck the eels, disintegrating them.

For just a moment, a scream of loss ripped through my soul, an echo of having lost something else. But it was only a moment, and in the next, fury rolled through me. I called on the magic again, and the hands fed me power. Pure, raw power. I did not even realize they were taking my sanity from me, but it was harder and harder to put together coherent thoughts. Impulse was all I could feel, and I grew. I became a giant, a god. I waved the trident, and the skies tore open with lightening. On my whim, waves formed and crashed. It was mine, all mine, I thought. Nothing else mattered but the feel of the trident in my hands and the power to crush. Maim. Destroy.

I tore them apart, flinging the useless human aside, and creating for the mermaid a whirlpool prison. I looked down on her, and the rage burned hotter. Who was she, to take Tirton's favor? Who was she to steal it for herself? It should never have been hers! And to think, she had almost had a taste of the happiness I had never been allowed. Raising the trident over her, I shouted, "So much for true love!"

Then it came. The human had managed to board a wreck that had surfaced in the storm, and driven it toward me. Its spar had sheared off in a ragged, splintered spear that stabbed straight through me.

In these last moments, I feel the hands pass through my mind, restoring me to myself too late. My sanity, memories of my mother, my sister, my son, and my love for my son. It is cruelty, I realize, for they are born of my own need to take. The hands, by giving all this back to me, have taken their greatest price. My happiness. All that is left is a brief span of misery. My groan shakes the very sky as my tentacles writhe in pain, clamping onto the source of my destruction to tear it apart. As I sink beneath the waves, I see the young human diving over the side, and I gnash my teeth. Even revenge is denied me. She will see her human live, and by magic may even continue loving him.

My heart shudders to a halt, and I feel myself slipping from my body. With a last wrench of my will, I turn my thoughts from the wench. I do not want my final thoughts to rest on her… but on the son I once deemed more precious to me than my own security.

My spirit cries out as my body dissolves into silt, find my son. Find my son, care for him, love him. Give him what I sold my body and soul piecemeal for, and failed to attain. Talen's happiness.

Somewhere in the sea, a child's cries are attended by a doll with black, shining button eyes and a red nose. In some forgotten cave, patrolled by sharks and barracuda, a half-breed learns his first words, and plays with shells and toys that live. Somewhere in the vast stretches of wasteland, the firstborn son of the great sea-king, Triton, and the witch Ursula, sleeps on a bed of sponges, and dreams of soft, warm tentacles that hold him close and keep him safe.

THE END.


End file.
